Learn more

Gift spotlights a rare and deadly cancer

Posted
December 4, 2013

No one was more stunned than Tom
Maloney when his wife was diagnosed with
appendix cancer nearly three years ago.
Betti Boers Maloney had always been fit,
active, and health-conscious. At 60, after
raising four children (a blended family, formed
when the couple married in 1984) and working
as the office manager for her husband’s
medical device materials business, she looked
like the picture of health. She tended a
garden, decorated her home, and read
everything she could on nutrition and fitness.

But a few days after Christmas in 2010,
she felt an intense pain in her abdominal area
that sent her to the doctor. A CT scan found
a mass, and a few weeks later doctors at the
University of Minnesota scheduled her for
surgery to address what they assumed was
colon cancer.

That diagnosis quickly changed, however:
Betti Boers Maloney had appendix cancer —
a rare cancer that, in this case, was particularly
virulent and aggressive. “She was a very
strong-willed person, and she was bound and
determined to do what she would have to
do to survive this thing,” Tom Maloney recalls.
But nothing seemed capable of stopping
the cancer. On September 2, 2011 — just nine
months after her initial complaint of abdominal
pain — Betti Boers Maloney passed away.

Despite his grief, Tom Maloney was
impressed with the care his wife received
from U of M professionals, including Todd
Tuttle, M.D., chief of surgical oncology. “Todd
always made us both feel very good. Our best
days were days when we could get to the
University and [he would] have an explanation
for this or that.”

But answers weren’t always readily
available. Appendix cancer affects fewer than
1,000 Americans every year. It’s often misdiagnosed
as ovarian or colon cancer. What’s
more, while treatments exist, little is known
about its causes.

“There simply hasn’t been much research
on the risk factors for appendix cancer —
clues that might lead to earlier diagnosis,”
Tuttle says.

So when Maloney told Tuttle that he
wanted to make a gift that might help other
families avoid the pain and agony that he
and his wife had endured, Tuttle suggested
supporting research into the causes of
appendix cancer. Maloney agreed, establishing
the Betti Boers Maloney Appendix
Cancer Research Fund.

Wasting no time, Tuttle joined forces
with fellow Masonic Cancer Center member
Beth Virnig, Ph.D., associate dean for
research at the School of Public Health,
to launch research into the roots of this little-understood disease.

“The U is using funds to ask probing
questions and analyze existing data,” says
Maloney. “Is there some pattern to cases?
Is there some reason why appendix cancer
seems to be on the rise? Initially, I wanted
to find a cure, but now I’ve become more
realistic. I’m more interested in what causes
the cancer to begin with,” he says.

“It’s sometimes a process, rather than a
quick answer,” Virnig concurs. “Now we have
more questions, the kind of questions that
we didn’t even know we’d be asking until this
research was done. What Tom really gave us
was the time to play detective and to uncover
the data that will lead to answers.”